UPE SSA 2015

The Vestibular (from Portuguese: vestíbulo, "entrance hall") is a competitive examination and is the primary and widespread entrance system used by Brazilian universities to select their students. The Vestibular usually takes place from November to January, right before the start of school year in February or March, although certain universities hold it every semester. The exams often span several days, usually three, with different disciplines being tested each day. Origin

The Vestibular was implanted primarily as a way to prevent nepotism or some other form of unfair or beneficial selection of candidates. It was considered by law the only authorized selection method until 1996, when the new Education Law was passed.

Criticism

While the Vestibular is generally considered to be a fair and unbiased system to select students, there are controversies.

There is some criticism to the alleged standardization of the high school curriculum for the whole country to match the Vestibular agenda. As most types of academic evaluation, the vestibular suffers from the same limitations as a regular test; that is, factors such as stress come into play. It also seems to favor candidates that come from a wealthier background, who had access to better and deeper education in private schools, as opposed to the comparatively poor public high school educational system, although many university boards claim that it doesn\'t matter which background the candidates have, since their Vestibular aims to select the best students based solely on their knowledge. To ease this problem, some universities such as the Federal University of Minas Gerais, provide a 10– 15% bonus for students who received their middle and high education in public schools. There is also the alternative of taking classes at cram schools called cursinhos. Those are revisions of Vestibular subjects, given through periods of 9 months (the regular year-long one), 6 months (the semi-intensive one), and 3 months (known as intensive). These "cursinhos" are given usually for the most prestigious schools and can be done after concluding high school or as a complement of the last year of it.

(Disponível em: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestibular)